A SUFFOLK businessman caught selling Viagra and setting up a large-scale cannabis factory is to be stripped of £117,000.

A SUFFOLK businessman caught selling Viagra and setting up a large-scale cannabis factory is to be stripped of £117,000.

As William Henley contemplates his future behind bars today, he is faced with paying back a majority of the money he made from his illegal enterprises.

Ipswich Crown Court heard the 47-year-old from Mickfield had almost £171,000 in his bank accounts. If he fails to pay back nearly £120,000 of it he faces another two years in jail and will still be compelled to return the money.

Detective constable Jed Carlon, of Suffolk police's financial investigations unit, said he was extremely pleased Henley was being penalised for his crimes.

He added: "What's happened is what the Proceeds of Crime Act was brought in for - to take away the profit from crime."

Judge John Holt made the confiscation order after a hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Prosecutor Anthony Bate told the court that the £171,000 referred to the unexplained money in Henley's bank accounts.

While Henley's £117,000 in available assets refer to the £64,000 in a joint bank account held by Henley and his mother, the £3,000 family car and half his share of the £350,000 marital home in Debenham Road, Mickfield - less the mortgage and the cost of selling it.

Henley's crimes were discovered after a fire at his address last April.

Nearly 400 cannabis plants were discovered in outbuildings at Henley's home when firefighters were called to tackle a blaze that had started in the electrical growing equipment.

When police arrived to investigate, they also found large quantities of male impotence tablets, which Henley had been selling illegally by mail order.

Mr Bate told the court yesterday that, for sentence, the value of the crop of flowering tops had been agreed at £44,000 and the value of the medicines at around £13,500.

At an earlier hearing, Henley admitted producing a class C drug, selling a medicinal product without prescription - Viagra, and two counts of selling medicinal products - Kamgra and Apcalis - not on the general sale list.

In March, Henley was given a two-year sentence for cannabis production, a six-month consecutive sentence for one charge of selling medicinal products not on the general list and a further six-month concurrent sentence for the remaining two charges.

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